Page 105 of The Friend Zone

She’d said she’d stay, and she usually did what she said she would. But this thing had her shaken, and I couldn’t wait forty-eight hours to run after her if she took off on me again. I’d go insane.

My mind was exhausted. I hadn’t slept last night. I didn’t fully absorb everything she’d said in the kitchen and some of it began to catch up to me now.

I didn’t come here to tell you so you could decide whether you want to date me. That’s not even on the table.

If Kristen thought I was going to let her go, she was fucking nuts. Not now that I knew she loved me. Not ever.

I finally understood the kind of love that made men give up everything. The kind that made someone change religions or go vegan or move to the other side of the world to be with the woman they loved. If someone had told me six months ago that I’d choose a woman who couldn’t have kids, I’d have called him crazy. But being with her wasn’t even something I had to think about. I did want kids. But I wanted her first. Everything else was just everything else.

Sure, a part of me grieved a life I knew I wouldn’t have now. Kids that I’d never meet, a future different from the one I’d spent the last few years wanting. But I processed it like I’d been the one who just got a diagnosis. Because in a way, I had. This thing didn’t feel like her problem. It felt like our problem, to figure out together. It was as much mine as it was hers.

I fell in next to the guys and we made our way onto the scene, our feet crunching over broken glass.

I stepped over a side-view mirror and nodded to a cop talking to a sobbing woman by the open door of her blue Kia. I assumed it was the other vehicle involved in the accident. The bumper had damage.

No skid marks. The lady blew right through a red light.

“Probably prescription pain pills,” Luke mumbled.

Shawn scoffed. “She looks like vodka to me.”

I shook my head. “I hope the accident didn’t ruin her buzz. She’ll need it where she’s going.”

We saw too much of this bullshit. And now I had to be here cleaning up this lady’s mess instead of talking to Kristen.

Javier nudged Luke, and he veered off to check on the lady.

I tried to put myself into work mode, though most of it was autopilot at this point.

The motorcycle rider lay facedown twenty feet away. He’d been thrown. I knew walking up the injuries were bad. By the looks of his twisted leg, he’d been pinned between the car and his bike during impact. The mangled bike sat on its side next to a planter full of birds-of-paradise on the sidewalk in front of the hotel.

I stared at the bike as I walked.

The bike…a Triumph, but with that new exhaust he just put on.

I looked back at the patient, everything suddenly slowing.

The helmet…a blacked-out Bell Qualifier DLX.